y client Jesse, who you’ll meet in a moment, is fictional but her experiences are real. Each session is as different as each client, but our first working session might go like this:

Jesse arrives already a bit harried from the day but she has arranged her schedule to allow us up to 90 minutes together. She’s dressed comfortably since she’ll stay fully clothed during her hour on the table.

This is Jesse’s first session with me, and she wants to know how this works, so we talk about that briefly before turning to what she wants from the session. I also want to know about injuries – old ones that hang on, new ones that seem worth mentioning. Jesse has high blood pressure and her neck still bothers her from the car accident a few years ago. Oh yes, and she’s not sleeping well.

We talk more about the neck injury. It isn’t acute, so Jesse says I don’t have to avoid it during the session. In fact, Jesse wants to focus on the neck right away but I explain that I usually do a “survey” of the body to see what is going on, let her feel what the work is like, and to relax the body for deeper work. In subsequent sessions, we might go straight to a problem area, but not today.

The “body survey”

Jesse is lying on her back with a blanket on – one can do the work through several layers – as I start at her feet. I’m “listening” with my fingers and hands, not my ears. “Touching” isn’t the right word since it doesn’t have the right flavor of non-manipulative acceptance needed for the work.

My hands follow the fine movements in Jesse’s feet, and I follow my hands. Hmm, it seems that the movement isn’t as full on her right side as on her left, and my first impression is that there’s a restriction at the level of her lower abdomen. We’re working silently, saving comments and questions till later, though Jesse knows she can always ask me what I’m doing or tell me if she’s uncomfortable.

I move up Jesse’s body, listening at the thighs, the hips and the shoulders before sitting at the top of the table and cradling her head in my hands. I may listen here for some time, following the motion of her cranial bones, and integrating impressions from my brief survey. Yes, I can feel the left/right asymmetry here, as well, and there may also be some work to be done in the head itself.

Some relaxation

If I haven’t already done so when working at her feet, I’ll encourage a “still point” in Jesse’s cranial rhythm by putting light pressure on the base of her skull. Jesse’s rhythm will quiet down and then stop before I relax my hands and her rhythm starts afresh. This is generally relaxing for the client and “rebooting” the rhythm seems to prepare the craniosacral system for the work to follow by removing some of the smaller irregularities and restrictions.

Now I return to the restriction in Jesse’s abdomen. I don’t know why it’s there, and Jesse never mentioned anything about it, but the tightness in her belly calls for attention. Since I can feel this restriction from the head, where it seems to be a major source of asymmetry in the cranial motion, any release I can get here might help Jesse’s neck pain, too.

I slide one hand under Jesse’s lower back and place the other on her lower abdomen, asking if she’s comfortable. With her OK, I proceed to put a little pressure on her belly and feel the slightest movement under my top hand, pulling it a bit to one side. The body is telling me how it wants to move. And I wait.

Waiting

This can’t be rushed or forced. If I were to try to force this, the entire restricted volume would move around as a unit, just as it has done hundreds of times already today as Jesse bent or turned. I need to hold this part of Jesse’s belly so there’s just enough traction on the restriction to encourage it to let go, but not so much that the familiar, habitual patterns of holding kick in and keep the restricted volume locked in a knot. (This way of encouraging the release of old holding patterns is often called “unwinding” and is common to many styles of bodywork.)

At one time, this may have been the body’s way of dealing with a fresh injury. Now the tension has outlived its usefulness and the body might be encouraged to use its own wisdom to let go of the tension.

Jesse’s tummy rumbles … a good sign. There! I feel a slight change in the tone of the abdominal tissue and then a subtle release, a softening beneath my hand. My sense is that there are more layers to be released, and I can come back later if there is time.

But I move on and check the respiratory diaphragm and the shoulders in the same way, paying special attention to the shoulders (and using some acupressure points for relaxation) because of Jesse’s complaints about neck pain. Her shoulder blades and collarbones briefly “dance” around and I encourage this natural movement of the body without overlaying my own agenda about direction or timing. Usually this means that the body is discharging additional tension, perhaps long held beneath Jesse’s conscious awareness.

Moving to Jesse’s head, I feel again for the craniosacral rhythm. The work at the lower abdomen seems to have removed some of the asymmetry I felt earlier, and the additional unwinding at the shoulders may have helped as well. But the abdominal tension that tugged at the covering of Jesse’s spinal cord – possibly for years – may also have left its trace in the bones and membranes of the head.

The “falx” …

Each of the bones has its own personality, its own preferred participation in Jesse’s craniosacral rhythm. Bones that come in pairs, like the parietal bones that form the top of the back of the head, normally move apart laterally during one part of the cycle, and then back together. Other bones, like the frontal bone of Jesse’s forehead, make a slow and subtle nodding motion, down and back up.

I listen to these motions, and to anything that indicates a restriction in that motion. Perhaps two bones were jammed together during a childhood fall, or perhaps the tough membranes of the skull holds abnormal tension that deflects or impedes the motion that the bone would otherwise make.

I don’t sense any bone-to-bone restrictions when I work on Jesse’s frontal bone but, as I try ever so lightly to float the frontal toward the ceiling, it seems to wobble and dance about its center. This is common and may be interpreted as an unwinding of tension stored in the vertical dural membrane in the head that separates Jesse’s right cerebral hemisphere from her left.

This membrane looks approximately like a sliver of a moon – or a scythe, from which the membrane gets its Latin name falx -- with the round edge running from behind Jesse’s “third eye,” along the top of her head, down the back of the head and underneath the skull to the opening receiving the spinal cord.

The tension that is being unwound from Jesse’s forehead and falx thus could have been transmitted all the way up the spinal column … possibly from the restriction in her abdomen. Or this could be tension arising within the skull itself. I don’t really have to know which, since Jesse’s bones tell me what to do.

When the “falx dancing” is done, I can feel the craniosacral rhythm in the frontal bone clearly and decide it is time to move on.

… and the “tent”

Jesse’s temporal bones seem restricted just behind the ears; the craniosacral rhythm carries them smoothly in one direction but seems to run into a barrier on the return. I try a few different things to remove or reduce the barrier, including pulling gently on Jesse’s ears. Among other things, this light traction offers an opportunity for another of Jesse’s dural membranes to unwind.

This membrane, the tentorium, connects the two temporal bones and also the occiput, or back of Jesse’s head. It is raised in the middle, where it attaches to the falx, and it looks a bit like a little tent, from which it gets its Latin name. Thus Jesse’s temporal bones are influenced directly by the surrounding bones and indirectly by the connections of the falx and the tent to others.

Closing

I don’t want to work on Jesse’s temporals too long … that’s a good way to make her dizzy, and our time at the table is nearly over. I close with another still point and wait a few minutes for Jesse to open her eyes before encouraging her to roll on her side and get up slowly.

Jesse accepts the water I offer and we talk about the session and what she might expect. While our work together is done for now, her “session” will continue for one or two days as her body accepts and builds on the changes we started on the table. I don’t expect anything big to happen, but Jesse may not expect anything at all to happen, so we talk so Jesse won’t be surprised. For example, if we’ve freed some restrictions from an old injury, Jesse may relive some of the emotional stress of the original incident and simultaneously enjoy increased physical ease.

Later Jesse will tell me that she had the best night’s sleep in weeks after our session. Her neck feels better – but not totally fixed – and she was surprised that she seemed to have more freedom in her abdomen. “More room, but not fat,” is how she put it. We’ve scheduled another session in a few weeks since Jesse wants to see if we can find more release for her neck. And, if Jesse’s interested, perhaps I can show her how to feel the craniosacral rhythm herself.